Transcript
NOTE: This transcript may have been automatically generated using software and, as such, may not be completely accurate.
Welcome to the Relax and Retune Meditation. Start off by taking a deep breath and letting awareness descend into the body, right to the ground. Feel the entire body here, letting your body be at ease if you’re lying down, settling into a sense of total relaxation. Soften the muscles. If you’re sitting, just relax every muscle that you don’t need to maintain this posture, allowing all muscles that aren’t needed to just be at rest. Soften the muscles of the face, the eyes, and the rest of the body. Soften still.
Even while lying down, settle into this sense of being relaxed while also adopting a posture of just being open, aware, and awake. Know that the key to deep relaxation revolves around the breath. If you can learn to relinquish any control of this body’s natural tendency to breathe, your body will naturally begin to soften. And as you’re breathing, know that there’s no preference for any type of breathing. Just have this sense of allowing and letting be. Every out-breath is an opportunity to relax more deeply into the body. With every exhalation, fully release a bit more, releasing all the activities of the mind, the busyness, releasing tension in the body, all while being clear and aware.
Of course, the mind can wander off into a place of sleepiness, dullness, dreaminess, or maybe into a place of busyness or anxiousness, distraction. And when this happens, just know that this is happening. The mind’s wandering. It’s perfectly fine. The first step is to relax the body again, gently guiding it back to just being aware, breathing in, breathing out, releasing a little bit more, letting go of any fears or hopes, letting awareness rest in this stillness, in this moment, in this field of the body. Outside of this practice, there are many things going on in the past and the future, but right now, just settle in, letting your awareness be open in the body like a mist, filling the body, not tightly focused.
And even be aware of the duration of the breaths, long breaths, noticing long breaths, short breaths, noticing short breaths. Maintaining this balance of relaxed while having this sense of knowing, relaxing more and more deeply with each out-breath. Nowhere to go, nothing to do right now, no problems to solve, just maintaining this balance on the out-breath, releasing, relaxing, while remaining aware, clear of this body’s natural rhythm. Letting be.
Remember, in a moment, you’ll hear the sound of a bell, and that’ll be the end of our practice. Until then, just see if you can acknowledge the active choice of taking this time out of all your daily busyness for your own learning, health, and well-being. This is certainly an act of self-care, so find some way of acknowledging yourself or taking this time.
